FETO leader Gulen suspect in assassination of Russia's Turkey ambassador

Fetullah Gulen, the leader of an outlawed network accused of orchestrating a failed military coup against the Turkish government in 2016, has been named among a list of 28 suspects indicted for the assassination of Russia’s former ambassador to Ankara in December of that year.

Turkish investigators completed their work into the case and sent the bill to court on Friday. In addition to Gulen, suspects Serif Ali Tekelan, Emrullah Uslu and Sahin Sogut were named in the indictment. 

The suspects are charged with "violation of the constitutional order", "membership to an armed terrorist organisation" and "deliberate killing with objective of spreading terror."

Gulen, who has been living in the US state of Pennsylvania after leaving Turkey with a fake passport in 1999, is accused of being behind the assassination. 

The bill also emphasized that the assassination was an act of provocation aiming to sabotage relations between Turkey and Russia.

Andrey Karlov was shot to death by Mevlut Mert Altintas, an off-duty police officer, in an art gallery in the capital Ankara. Altintas was killed in a shootout with police in the gallery after the assassination.

It later came to light that the gunman had links to the Gulenist network, known in Turkey as FETO.

The assassination was at a time of thaw between strained Turkish and Russian relations. 

Since the murder, Ankara and Moscow gradually made progress in rebuilding their ties that were first disrupted by the 2015 downing of a Russian fighter jet over the Syrian border by the Turkish military.

That incident was also later linked to a FETO plot to trigger a war between Turkey and Russia.

Turkey has been formally seeking the extradition of Gulen from the US since FETO members attempted a failed military coup in July 2016, which claimed the lives of 249 people and injured more than 2,000 others.